Yes, the headline is a reference to the memorable 1966 comedy — well worth revisiting or watching for the first time.
For the second day in a row, the mainstream media offers hysterical headlines such as “Russian fighter jets, bombers intercepted off Alaska for 2nd day in a row“. These pieces come complete with pictures of big bad Russian bombers flying through the sky:
U.S. warplanes intercepted Russian bombers and fighter jets off the Alaskan coast for the second day in a row on Tuesday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) confirmed early Wednesday morning. The U.S.-Canadian airspace defense agency said two Russian bombers accompanied by two Su-35 fighter jets entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) and were intercepted by two NORAD F-22s.
The astute reader realizes by the second paragraph that at no time did these aircraft enter American airspace. In fact, even further down we learn that such flights have been routine (or at least common) for more than a decade:
NORAD said it has “intercepted an average of approximately six to seven Russian sorties entering its ADIZ since Russia resumed long range aviation patrols in 2007.”
So it turns out that there is no news here. Russian aircraft are performing operations that Russian aircraft commonly perform. I’m not a military expert, but I’m pretty confident that American aircraft perform pretty much the same operations off the boundaries of Russia and China on a similarly routine basis. This exemplifies the kind of hysterical media madness that was so pervasive during the cold war (and that the cited movie marvelously lampoons).
The motivation for this media madness is no laughing matter. It bears all the earmarks of an intentional distraction — the question is “distraction from what?”. I can’t help but note that the Austrian government is in turmoil because of a scandal involving its newly-ascendant right-wing “Freedom Party” and Russia. That party has long and deep ties to Russia and Mr. Putin (emphasis mine):
BERLIN — The leader of the Austrian far-right Freedom Party has signed what he called a cooperation agreement with Russia’s ruling party and recently met with Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, the designated national security adviser to President-elect Donald J. Trump of the United States.
Word of the agreement with Russia was the latest sign that the Kremlin is forging bonds with political parties across Europe in what some European leaders suspect is a coordinated attempt to meddle in their affairs and potentially weaken Western democracies. Many of these efforts are murky and involve obscure groups, and it is unclear whether President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has any direct involvement.
The Freedom Party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, reported the signing of the agreement with United Russia, Mr. Putin’s party, on Monday on his Facebook page, where he also disclosed that he had visited General Flynn a few weeks ago in Trump Tower in New York.
It appears to me that the most of the GOP is in thrall to Mr. Putin and has been since the 2016 election of Mr. Trump. Contrary to Mr. Barr’s loud assertions to the contrary, the Mueller Report clearly states that Russia DID make widespread and concerted attempts to manipulate the 2016 election. It is clear that the Trump campaign and Mr. Trump welcomed those attempts. It is clear that this was part of a worldwide Russian campaign to destabilize western democracies around the world.
How far do the tentacles of this long-term Russian intervention extend? What if the leaders of today’s Trumpist GOP are themselves compromised by Russian interests?
Is this what the media would prefer us not to explore further?
Wait, what? You’re accusing the media of whipping us into a frenzy about Russia to distract us from the other frenzy they whipped up about Russia?
Corporate America does not want the public to understand the extent and implications of Russian intervention in the political fabric of Western democracies.
Endless faux outrage and “shock” is good television. The Donny-and-the-Democrats show is entertainment that has more in common with nightly Worldwide Wrestling exhibitions than anything substantive.
Proceeding in the background, under the radar, the GOP is packing the judiciary with right-wing extremists who will dominate our legal system for a generation to come. Environmental regulations are being stripped. Science programs are terminated. Our federal housing program is led by an impostor who doesn’t know the term REO.
These hysterical stories about routine military exercises don’t just happen. Somebody decides to put each piece together and somebody decides to broadcast it on CBS (in this case).
The question is “why?”
What is so startling about what the Russians have been getting away with-under Trump and Obama it must be said-is how out in the open it all is. There is nothing sneaky about this. They literally wrote a book 20 years ago spelling out their geopolitical goals.
It is important for the Russophilic left to remember that Putin is a fascist and not the lefty anti-imperialist Glenn Greenwald makes him to be. It is important for the Russophobic right (looking at you Mitt Romney) to remember that this is an ideological campaign that will be won or lost in cyberspace and hardware and hard power will only go so far.
Russia is an economically and culturally isolated place. It is one recession away from famine. It has sold of its aircraft carriers and only 4 of its 12 SLBM capable subs are active, the rest are mothballed in port. Fracking and shale gas reserves in the US have killed their oil revenue stream and once widespread LNG conversion is allowed can wipe out their natural gas monopoly in Germany and Eastern Europe.
Make no mistake-Obama was fundamentally correct in asserting that this is a declining power with very little ability to project its power beyond its neighborhood. That said-in the near and mid term it is our greatest geopolitical threat. Iran and possibly China can be bought off with smart trade deals. Russia will continue to cause chaos in western democracies and back illiberal ones. It’s cyber capability is second to none and we are decades behind. It would be nice if anyone running for President talked about this stuff.
I view myself as neither Russophilic or Russophobic. I agree with your characterization (as do my several Russian colleagues and peers). I see Mr. Putin as a desperate man using all his considerable acumen to buy as much time as possible and expand Russia’s influence as much as possible.
The Russian intervention in Western democracies is dangerous and pernicious. The cyberwarfare that accompany that intervention worsen the situation.
This is not going to get better by itself. The use of the NRA (a potent political force in US politics) as a Russian asset (for money laundering, for example) is already in the public record. The implications of that compromise go far beyond the sexy-woman-spy narrative that the media focused on.
Where else in the GOP has the Russian cancer metastasized? Do we really know the actual motivation for the Trumpist leaders who grovel before Mr. Trump? How many other Maria Butinas (or her male counterparts) are there? How many other shady or outright fraudulent business deals are there? Was the Deutsche Bank Russian money laundering limited to just Trump family entities?
Just how deep does the GOP corruption go?
I remember when we all snickered at Romney in 2012 for calling Russia our greatest geopolitical threat. The Cold War is over, we said. He looks like quite the prophet now.
@”[Russia]’s cyber capability is second to none and we are decades behind.”
Pay attention to the large industrial plant explosions that have been happening in western nations this year.
Multiple published reports describe malware that compromises critical safety systems, rendering them useless to stop runaway industrial processes (emphasis mine):
The above is from MIT — hardly a hot-bed of tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories.
We are in a cyber war. Ask the residents of Houston whether industrial episodes like this are dangerous. Pay attention to official explanations the cause of explosions like last week’s explosion and fire in New Jersey.
Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite authors, has his professional assassins explain that the most effective way to assassinate a heavily-protected government official is to find a way to compromise the security team protecting the figure, so that the successful killing is done by a “deranged individual”. Attacks like these use a similar vector — when such an episode happens, it is superficially “accidental”.
It is striking that as the evidence expands of Russia’s worldwide cyber attacks on western democracies, Donald Trump does all in his power to disarm and dismantle American cyber security capabilities. He attacks and threatens to prosecute investigators on the trail of such Russian attacks.
Donald Trump behaves in a way that is indistinguishable from that of a full-fledged Russian agent and puppet. It appears to me that a growing body of evidence suggests that he is committing treason.
He MUST be impeached.
Are you suggesting corporate America is OK with Russian interference, and if so what would be their motive?
Some of us did not snicker and argued he was right at the time and got flack for it. I’ve been warning about Russia since 2008. Condi told me they would never invade Georgia and three days later they did. This followed their cyber attack that crippled Estonia and the cyber attack they launched against US interests in Georgia to hamper our response.
I defended McCains aggressive response at the time. I defended Romney four years later. Neither of those two were wrong. Dubya, Condi, Obama, Clinton, Trump and Tillerson were all dead wrong about Russia. At least that’s one area where Pompeo and Bolton aren’t wrong to be hawkish.
Granted my friends father was Clinton’s top Russia expert during the Yeltsin-Putin transition and he told me that we should also be very way of a post-Putin Russia when the oligarchs fight over turf. It could make the collapse of Syria and Iraq look like cakewalks. Again-nobody running for President has a plan.
I’m suggesting that corporate America likes whatever brings money into corporate America. At least in the short term, corporate America does much better with GOP control of the government. If exposing that the GOP has been turned by the Russians threatens the GOP control of government, then corporate America prefers to not talk about it.
Saber-rattling, fear-mongering, and war hysteria — so long as the war is somewhere else — helps the GOP and helps corporate America (war is VERY profitable so long as the destruction is somewhere else). Exposing actual Russian corruption of corporate protectors in government is not helpful to corporate America.
If it’s happening, then that’s the motive.
What interest do the Russians have in attacking a facility in Saudi Arabia?
An excellent question.
I found this March 2019 eenews.net piece that explores this question in more detail.
The suggestions are:
1. A testing ground for attacks on US and European targets
2. The target in the 2017 attack, Petro Rabigh, is a direct competitor to new Russian plants under construction
From the piece (emphasis mine):
The threat is real. The question is what, if anything, we are doing about it.
The article you cite is much less sure that the attack on the Saudi facility came from Russia.
In fact it is Trump’s appointee, Dan Coates who seems to have the fewest doubts.
There is no longer serious debate in the cyber community about the origin of this tool. You asked for insight into possible motivation and I offered a source for that insight. You’re not going to get material like this engraved in stone and handed from a mountaintop.
The comment from James Clapper is as authoritative as that of Mr. Coates. I invite you to offer evidence of competent security professionals disputing the origin of this malware. Yes, the initial 2017 speculation was that the malware was from Iran. Subsequent research has demonstrated that that speculation was incorrect.
These attacks use Russian malware.
Okay, so the fact that the corporate media is hyping the supposed Russian attack on our air space means that the corporate media is actually covering up for Russia.
And the fact that Russia has no obvious motive to attack Saudi Arabia means that Russia is just practicing.
And the fact that Trump’s appointee is pushing this theory means that Trump is Putin’s puppet.
Is that a fair summary of your argument?
I think Tom harms his argument by talking about the motives the corporate media. Aside from money, I’m not sure they have one.
The Russians insinuated their way into the NRA, Podesta’s lobbying firm through Manafort, and Kentucky through Oleg Deripraska
Do a little googling and you’ll find the Triton hackers are considered most likely originating in Russia. There is plenty on them. The media often sucks when reporting on espionage because they have a hard time with sourcing.
Russia can benefit from attacking Saudi Arabia by disrupting the oil market and driving up the price of oil. Russia has been working assiduously to build and continue its influence by producing and piping oil to Europe and Central Asia. They also can field test applications of the malware.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/15/triton-hackers-malware-attack-safety-systems-energy-plant
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613054/cybersecurity-critical-infrastructure-triton-malware/
https://www.wired.com/story/triton-malware-russia-industrial-controls/
Nothing impossible about that, but it is kind of a stretch. Is Russia so bereft of adversarial democracies that it needs to attack a repressive theocracy that it friendly with?
Ok, So the routine flyby of Russian aircraft truly is headline news, the Russians weren’t responsible for the attack in Saudi Arabia, they aren’t responsible for Triton, and the national security leadership of two administrations is wrong about Russian cyber activity — especially Russian probing of US infrastructure safety systems. The wave of industrial explosions since January is purely coincidental.
Is that a fair summary of YOUR argument?
I agree that the “attacks ” on our air space are hyped. But the reason you give for the hype is pure conspiracy theory.
I don’t know who attacked the Saudi facility. Cyber attacks are notoriously difficult to trace. I’m not convinced that the Russians had any reason to do this. It is true that they, like us, would benefit from higher oil prices. And I don’t doubt that the Russians (also like us,remember Stuxnet?) are capable of cyber attacks.
But I haven’t seen anything that convinces me that it has to be Russia.
Neither Clapper nor Coats has a record of being an honest broker of information. By the way, did either of them denounce the hype surrounding the attacks on our air space?
I missed the wave of industrial explosions. Let’s see a list.
@Let’s see a list:
– Kearny, NJ 18-May-2018
– Waukegan IL, 3-May-2019
– Yancheng, China, 22-Mar-2019
– Tata Steelworks, Port Talbot Wales, 26-Apr-2019
– Stockholm, Sweden 27-Mar-2019
– Deer Park, TX 20-Mar-2019
– Edmonton, CA 11-Feb-2019
I understand that accidents happen. I don’t know what the average rate of such explosions is, and I don’t claim that all of these are the result of cyber attacks.
I only observe that the cyber community has warned that these were coming. The technology we’re talking about is real and is Russian.
I do, of course, remember Stuxnet. The difference between Stuxnet and Triton is that Stuxnet specifically targeted equipment (Iranian centrifuges in its public coming-out), where Triton specifically targets PEOPLE. Triton disables safety systems, and does so in a way that leaves plant operators believing that those systems are working. That leaves the target vulnerable to a host of other threats.
The point of Triton is to cause HUGE industrial explosions.
It’s the difference between a bayonet and a cluster bomb.
The fact that Triton is directed at people says nothing about who is deploying it.
Interesting that you mention cluster bombs,though.
@Says nothing about who is deploying it:
You mentioned Stuxnet, and I’m merely describing why the cyber community sees Triton as something different — regardless of who deploys it.
@pure conspiracy theory:
I’m open to other speculation.
The point is that we are being fed propaganda. Propaganda ALWAYS has a purpose.
I wonder what that purpose is.
@tom harms his argument:
Indeed I am speculating about the motive for this propaganda. I hope we agree, though, that it IS propaganda. Either some news editor decided to promote this or some military staffer decided to plant a story (which the media dutifully circulated).
Propaganda ALWAYS has a purpose and motive, and that was the motivation for my speculation.
Here’s a less nefarious, speculative reason for the story:
Fair enough. Why now, though?
I’ve also wondered if this is part of a beat-the-war-drums effort in connection with the escalation of tensions with Iran.
Trying to figure out this stuff is almost impossible. Too much of figuring how things work in a context that we don’t understand very well.
From my reading, it seems that Russia has always had a very active intelligence sector. I’m talking about going back to the czars. Russia has few advantages geopolitically speaking and can get influence by spreading corruption as it has in Hungary, for example. The incursions of planes could be a sort of psyops putting American forces on edge.
@The incursions of planes could be a sort of psyops:
I think that’s not the case here. These “incursions” (the aircraft never entered American airspace) have been happening for more than a decade.
Any psyops happening this week seem domestic in origin to me — unless somebody explains how this week’s operations differ from those that the Russians have been doing routinely since 2007.